Chapter 25 - Preliminary rounds
We're inside the Life Dome, standing in the arena together with a lot of other participants. There are nearly 3000 fighters that entered in total. We have to fight 15 battles in 25 days, and if we win 8 battles we advance to the 2nd preliminary round. For the first 5 battles we have to fight each day, after that we have 1 day rest in between. Even if we win the first 8, we still have to fight the 7 remaining battles. In the 2nd preliminary round you're teamed up with 1 other hedgehog, and have to go through a very long and hard obstacle course. At least, that's what they say. If we don't make it until the end within 4 days, we're scrapped from the tournament. The location for won't be revealed yet. The ones who remain will be fighting in the main rounds of the tournament. They assured us that not many fighter will remain after the first 2 preliminary rounds. That's a relief... or maybe not.
Part 1 of the preliminaries
The arena floor goes down, and we're in a very big hall with many small fighting arenas. We get told there are 100 of them. After 30 minutes of arranging and hustling, each arena has 30 fighters, except for 2. They have 28.
Anyway, 11 days pass, and I easily own everyone. I've won all 8 battles that I had. So did most of the others. We don't have anything to worry about for now. Unfortunately, 1 of my friends will get a loss right now. They were unlucky, and got matched up against each other. I'm just in time to watch their match.
Chick fight! Seria VS Jody!
Jody: "I'm taking you down!"
Seria: "We'll see about that."
Jody runs up to Seria, but she bumps against something near invisible. Seria's wires, and it doesn't seem she can get through them. She concentrates. What's she going to do? She punches into the ground. "Energy storm!" Jody yells. From beneath Seria, a whirlwind of energy is created. The same kind of energy Summers uses. Seria's wires are broken by it too. She can barely manage to escape it, and when she does Jody is already up to her. Jody starts off a combo, thrusting her into the air with a kick. Then she jumps into the air, showing off her impressive Sky Reaper style. After taking a few in the air, Seria teleports beneath Jody and she kicks her in the back. Then she ties Jody up with her wires, and uses her as a boxing ball. Jody takes a few hits, and unleashes energy to destroy the wires. They're both very tired now. Jody runs up to Seria, and punches her in the face. Seria falls down to the ground, knocked out.
A few seconds later Jody falls too, before she's announced as the winner. Ah, that's a shame. Just a few seconds more and Jody would've won. Maybe it has something to do with the fact I didn't want one beating the other? Their fight was a draw, but it's going to be noted as a loss for both.
I continue to dominate everyone else for a few weeks. Up to day 25, only Jody and Seria out of us have one loss. There are still a few who have to fight though. I'm checking up on one of the bad guys, Jackal. His fight had already been going on for a while. when I arrive, Jackal gets a kick against his head, flooring him. He's knocked out! He was defeated by a mysterious silver colored hedgehog wearing a jacket. He barely beat him though. After he rested a bit, and Jackal stood up, I make a talk with the jacket wearing guy.
Me: "You must be really strong if you defeated that guy."
JacketHog: "Not really. I lost 2 times already. I was totally dominated by them."
Me: "Might I ask who defeated you?"
JacketHog: "The Malicious, I believe. And a gross looking girl. If she didn't look so messed up, she'd look really hot. Revenant is her name."
Me: "Those are 2 of the strongest fighters in the entire tournament."
JacketHog: "I knew about The Malicious being strong... but that girl too!"
Me: "She works for him. So what's your name? I'm"
JacketHog: "Hero Red. I heard about you. You pretty much defeated everyone without doing anything, right? You must be one of the strongest ones in the tournament too. I'm Jack Matis. I heard you had several encounters with The Malicious and the spawn of evil, Summers, and you survived each time!"
Me: "It's not that impressive trust me. And Summers isn't evil anymore. With a whole group I managed to turn him back. He's in this tournament too, by the way."
Jack: "Whoa, that's some heavy stuff! Definitely impressive! I'll be heading home for now. See ya."
That guy is pretty strong. Much stronger than he thinks he is. The next day, only about 1200 contestants arrive. Those that are out of the tournament because of heavy injuries and too much losses aren't there.
My buddy for the next few days get chosen. The pairs all have the same win-lose ration. Out of the 1200 contestants, only 34 don't have a single loss. There are just a couple with 1 loss. Most of them have 3 to 6 losses. Anyway, my buddy is... Bass Shadnik? Uhm... not really a buddy. But I don't have much choice... at least it's better than what Summers has. The Malicious & Summers: Biggest buddies in history! Jody gets paired up with Jackal. I expect her to slap Jackal many times during this preliminary round. Anyway, the other pairs are:
Seria & Jack (I wonder how Jack would respond if he finds out she was a he)
Zero & Lexer (They shouldn't have much trouble working together)
Solar & Aquis (Hmm... somehow I don't think they actually get along)
Regulus & Ryou (They seem to get along very well)
Overdrive & some guy I don't know (tough luck, Overdrive)
Revenant & also some guy I don't know (Man... does Revenant eat others? I hope not)
Blaze & Shadow (coincidence? I can't imagine them getting to the end...)
Sonic & Lilly (They'll be there in the blink of an eye... I think)
Rosey & Knuckles (I feel kinda sorry for poor Knuckles)
Part 2 of preliminaries
After all pairs have been announced, we have to step in groups of 120 in 10 different elevators. When we get out, there is no sight of the others. There are other 10 different elevators. This time, we have to step in them in groups of 12. When we finally get down, there are 10 entrances. Each group of 2 has to pick a different entrance, and they can't go back. Bass choose the one we take. We enter, and a trapdoor behind us closes. It's kind a linear right now. We run for 2 hours through a thin hall, before we finally end up in a very big room. It seems we're at the bottom. Looking up, I see a couple of pairs of hedgehogs jumping and running. They don't cross each other. It's more like, they can't. The design is pure genius. They made it in a way that the pairs can see each other, but can't reach each other.
Bass is playing boss. He leads the way. I'll just let him, because there's no use in arguing. We go through numerous halls and split ways for several hours. Then we end up in a big room, and the door behind us closes. Whenever we try to go to the open door, it closes. The elevator doesn't work, and the 3rd door is closed. A short time later, 2 others arrive through the other door. Speakers explain we have to fight, and the losers are out of the tournament. They don't seem very tough. I'll just let Bass handle them. "Bass, you up for it?" I ask him. "You're letting me fight alone! YEAH!" The opponents are a bit startled by it.
So... they fight. The 2 opponents are pretty fast. Too fast for Bass. After a couple of minutes I decide to step in, and KO one of them. Bass then easily takes care of the other one. "What the hell were you doing!" I couldn't just let him get too tired. Who knows what other things lure. "We can't waste too much time or energy." An elevator brings a person with food, and water. The guy picks up the ones we beat, and takes them up with the elevator. The food and water is for us. Each day food and water will be brought to those rooms too, so we can go back to restore strength if needed. We eat and drink and we go on, through the 3rd door that opened now.
The 2nd part mainly consists of climbing. Halfway up, there's a resting point. So we take off for the day, and go on the next day. We climb further up, and after that we're in another big room. Another fight, it seems. We take them out very quickly. Yet again, we get served food water and the ones we beat are taken away. When we go on, we have to climb up again. It's the same distance as we climbed before we had our last fight. After that there's another resting point. But it's only been 4 hours since we slept. So we just go on. We have to jump over many gaps now. BIG gaps. Kinda dangerous. About 4 hours later we arrive at the next part fighting room. Bass had some trouble jumping, though I did it without any problems. The team we have to fight only has had 1 fight yet. This is our 3rd one. So... we just beat them up, and proceed after eating and drinking a bit. The guy from the elevator says that we're at the last part already, and that there's only 1 fight left for us.
We go on with the last part. This time it's puzzles, riddles and mysteries. That's what the sign says. First one is easy, find the colored blocks in the room, and place them in the right spot. Takes us 5 minutes to solve. After 10 rooms, there's a bed to rest. We've been up for a long time already... 10 hours. But we're so close. We might as well press on. The next puzzles, mysteries and riddles are much harder, and there are 15 of them in total. It takes us 6 hours to solve them all. The last one took us an hour. The last fighting room... we're there now. This didn't drain a lot of energy, though we're a little tired of being up for more than 16 hours.
Our opponents have won 2 fights. Not that it matter, because we easily kick their ass. Yeah, we made it! We step in a very big elevator. Different from the one the 'butler' uses. Surprisingly, we're the first to arrive.
Preliminaries completed
Pair: Hero Red and Bass Shadnik
Time taken: 29 hours and 43 minutes
End of chapter